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Ahhhh pictyres that would show off the weaknesses! Hehe no seriously, most of the updates are written during my tea break when I don't actually have it to hand to take the pics, will do however, as pictures are good.
Will add pics in he next post to follow all the work done before

So some developments.
As its been the Easter break i thought i would do a bit of construction to the robot. noting time is getting on, and im hoping to compete at Portsmouth.
Firstly, i had a rethink on the chassis, and although im happy with the majority of it, im thinking the main rib which stretches along the back, effectively strengthening the 2 halves together, is currently 12mm HDPE. i have decided to make this 20mm which will give a great big lump of support. The rest of the chassis im happy with as it wil be clad in 3mm Hardox, so i think this is ok.
This means i had to set up my other larger bed mill to machine the new plate. 1 more ebay shed in the garden later, and i now have it set up. sadly as the night was drawing in, i couldnt really start buzzing up and making it. so it was on with the electronics.

Great, i thought, now i can program both my ESC. Plug in my USBasp or my USBTiny into the PC and AVRDUDE, well well well, something is not going well... turns out i cannot get the devices to configure with this software properly.
Having said that, i do feel that i did actually get it to work, but by using the software from the brushed launchpad site, it failed to control the motors.

Anyway, i tried using Atmel studio 4/5/6 but as these devices are not configured to work with this program, and the stk5000 or whatever it was failed to work for me, i asked around to see if anyone had a programmer, the nice AVRISP blue device MK2? as this worked. sadly no one was available, Thank you Chris for offering to borrow yours!!
in the end, my impatience got the best of me, and as i had prime on amazon, i decided to spend some more money and grab one for myself. Luckily it arrived on Saturday and the amazon delivery person left it on my doorstep.

I then spent the next 10 minutes making the correct cable to connect my Hobbyking Atmel chip programming tool to the 6 pin cable from the device, and e viola (??) plugged it in, got the hex file and BOOM! programmed!
plugged it into motor and RX and nothing...

After testing, i decided to get the Spectrum hex file from the programming thread and BOOM downloaded (love having the correct tool for the job!) Connected it all up and Whhirrrrrrrrrr YES!!! we have movement and speed control!

After an ebay purchase week before last, i am now the owner of a 24v HIWIN electric actuator, the 100mm stroke at 25mm/s one. Love it, it is 40mm wide so fits nicely between my 2 halves of my robot, and the idea is that i can use this for a lifter if i feel the need to do so if the axe doesnt work out. I still have to build the plates for the axe, and am looking to get some chain sprockets for this as apposed to gears and timing belt. Im hoping that the gear ratio im thinking about is still possible within the frame i have. It was designed to be ok, so hoping.

I was also thinking, that i could easily have the axe, flipper as replacement bitsv - heaviest setup will be the axe. But, i could swap them out if i needed. Then i thought, if i have a motor there onto gears, could i have a small spinning disk? hey why not. So first thing first...v get the axe sorted.
what i will do, is add on an extra 5 mm to the width of the gap in between, so luckily i do have to machine a new rib from 20mm anyway.

The hardox armour has been made for the back, not looking great but i can tidy this up. it was a bit of a faff as using slightly curved hardox taken from Hard-Ox shell, but i have been able to work with it.
The side armour one needs a trim back, and i did weld the other side, but as i didnt CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) it, i have got the sizes a bit wrong, so will have to angle grind the welds off again and rebend/shape/weld with the aid of cardboard templates.
the front wedge plates need to be cut and welded in place to the sides, and mounting points worked out drilled and sorted.

Then the base...
I been trying to get to our scrappy to see what titanium plate they have, but each time i go they dont have anything or its all been taken away. so have decided to go for 10mm HDPE as this seems to be a popular choice - any recommendations greatly received.
I cannot machine this on my current router, so im hoping to be able to modify it and make it bigger, or get it cut outside using a work contact. As this is 10mm and not the originally designed 6mm material, i will have to modify all the finger joints on the existing parts to get it to fit.

Wow... so quite a lot to do then.... Now i must sleep, and plan tomorrows lunchtime activities!

I finally decided on the axe mech transmission.
Originally looking at timing belt and gears in a 2 stage gear reduction. As I needed to order some bits for work I was able to add on some bits, my additional cost mind.
I decided due to the strength and how much these will be bashed, to go for chain and sprocket, hurrah! I decided to go for 8mm pitch and again the space requirements dictate a 2 stage gear reduction. 1:1.25 then 1:3.66 or something. Due to the location of he gears I have to do it this way meaning first stage is 8 tooth to 10 tooth just to get the space to enable the 2nd stage to get the centre of axe rotation in correct place.
Hoping that once the Portsmouth event is done, I can upgrade to brushless axe drive so my space can be managed better.

So finally I now have some sprockets on their way from BelringOnline and chain from simply bearings. Was the cheaper options then buying from single store, and simply didn't sell the correct pitch sized sprockets.

Will see about using my electronic esc or am Rc switch relay for driving the axe, shall see when it's here next week.

Sadly i missed the postie over the weekend, but in the end my parts didnt come then.
So today, UK mail tried to deliver the gears to my home address as i was out at woirk, will have to get them resent.

These parts being... my pulleys for the 2 stage gearing for the axe. I did hoiwever receive my chain to my work address so i have 5m of 8mm 'scooter' chain as it is commonly reffered to in these parts.

Im looking forward to getting the gears then i can progress with the axe mech.